Justice for the bay

[Capt. Keith Wils]

Three Rapid River residents had their tribal right to subsistence fish revoked during their sentencing in an illegal commercial fishing case Friday in Manistique.

A tribal judge also ordered Andrew, Kevin and John Schwartz to pay thousands of dollars in fines, court costs, and restitution.

Read more in Saturday's Daily Press.

[xraygirl_77]

This is great news!

[Jess]

Approximately 30,000 in fines and restitution and condemnation of four snowmobiles.

[Jess]

http://www.dailypress.net/page/content.detail/id/520650.html?nav=5003

[fishmaster]

not even 30K!!!! 13K and thats total, not each!!!! and from what I understand the snowmobiles are probably only worth about 2k total forthe 4!!! again no justice.......if this would have in whitemans court the fines would have been 4 times as much!!! from what I've been told the investigation cost over the oast 4 years were over 40K......so we didn't even get our tax maoney back!!! BS is what I say.

[RoughWaters]

Too bad there wasn't any jail time included in their sentencing.......Hopefully the punishment they were dealt is enough of a deterrent to others, we'll just have to wait and see.

[Mike P]

Fishmaster, assuming your figures are correct.

The actual fine including snowmobiles brings the fine per pound of walleyes to about $.21 cents per pound of fish taken illegally by the Schwartz brothers.

So I want to know if you can buy walleyes anywhere else for $0.21 cents per pound.

Question number one is....if they were fined $0.21 cents per pound for the 72000 pounds of gamefish they stole, how much money did they sell the 72,000 pounds of fish for?

I have to think they received more than $0.21 cents per pound for the stolen gamefish, right ?

Is it only me who thinks the punishment{fines} don't fit the crime???

[xraygirl_77]

I am very disappointed with this ruling. I was so excited at first to hear they were getting fined..then I read the newspaper article. $13,000! It is sad. Stealing those fish from the Bay and reselling them is no different then going down to the store and stealing merchandise and reselling it!!
On a brighter note, I am hoping to get out fishing tonight! Hopefully I will have good news to report.

[Esky Moe]

Last Thursday for our family reunion we bought the equivilant of 22 walleyes (44 individual fillets) at Elmers and we paid almost $125. If you figure each fish was 2lbs (being generous on most fillets) then 2lbs x 22fish = 44lbs. $125/44lbs = $2.84lb. $2.84lb X 72000lbs = $204,480.
Just sayin.

[walleyeguy]

Wasn't the 72,000 lbs actual weight of sold fish after processing? Never got a straight answer on this but thought it was the case. Anybody?

[Lonesome Loser]

The fines & costs were $13,000 total + $15,000 in restitution. So the total they will have to pay is $28,000. The weight of the fish was in the round. Not processed. If this had been tried in State Court (which wasn't a possibility) The State would not have the authority to revoke their subsistence license. So they would have been right back out "fishing" And if you really think they would have gotten a harder punishment in State court here in Delta county, you need to spend more time in the court house and see how the system really works. This is a VICTORY for the sportsmen & women that fish LBDN.

[Mike P]

LL if it is a "VICTORY" I have one simple question maybe you or someone else could shed so light on, because I truly don't understand the fine amount they were given and what it was "BASED " on.

If your figures are right with the fine of $28,00.00 total for 72000 pounds of game fish, that comes out to approx $0.39 cents per pound of fish they stole from the public, if my math is correct.

My question then is , how much did they sell them to the wholesalers who bought the stolen fish from them?

Lets take an example .

If they got lets say $0.60 cents per pound for the whole fish they would have received approx. $43,200.00 for the fish. Minus the fines of $28,000.00 their profit would be $15,200.00.

I Know according to you, that they sold the "whole" fish. Walleye fillets in this area go for approx $11.00 per pound so I would think this $0.60 would be a conservative figure

Now I'm simply guessing what they got per pound , but I don't think they should make ANYTHING from the fish they stole.

Lets quit pretending for a moment. As far as losing there "sustenance fishing" rights I hardly think what they did was "sustenance fishing"

Also what makes you think they will obey the law , or the mandate that they don't "sustenance fish" . They never did before ! They are repeat offenders from what I understand.

If they get caught again , what would their punishment be next time, since they lost their rights to "sustenance fish"

It would be very helpful if anyone could shed some accuracy to the whole situation ! This way we all wouldn't have to guess at what happened

Anyone know the whole truth?

[fishs]

Little Bay used to be my favorite place to fish. Ironically I stopped going up there about 5-6 years ago. I had been coming up since about 1984 so I got in on some very good fishing. I hope the fishing will rebound. I miss the place dearly. Great people. The damage they did is much greater than the reported pounds of fish they killed.

[mudpuppy]

I really don't understand how so many people can think the fishery went down so much. I had my best ice fishing season ever last year for walleye and the perch fishing was really good too. I limited out numerous times for walleye and caught some big fish too.. I helped out the DNR with a walleye population sensus two springs ago and the numbers were unbelieveable, the average size was about 8 lbs.. For people to say that the fishery has gone down that much seems ridiculous to me.. Maybe these "criminals" helped our fishery by removing some of these big walleyes and letting the smaller ones and many many perch survive. Youre crazy if you think huge walleyes don't eat their own kind and so many perch.. I'm sure I'll get ripped a new one for saying this but it's just a thought.. Why did the DNRE get rid of the slot limit if they were well aware of all the big fish that the netters removed?? Doesn't make sense.. Maybe everyone should just give this issue a rest, what's done is done and we can't turn back time.. We should worry more about stopping Asian Carp which will completely destroy our fishery..

[DooFighter]

I really don't understand how so many people can think the fishery went down so much. I had my best ice fishing season ever last year for walleye and the perch fishing was really good too. I limited out numerous times for walleye and caught some big fish too.. I helped out the DNR with a walleye population sensus two springs ago and the numbers were unbelieveable, the average size was about 8 lbs.. For people to say that the fishery has gone down that much seems ridiculous to me.. Maybe these "criminals" helped our fishery by removing some of these big walleyes and letting the smaller ones and many many perch survive. Youre crazy if you think huge walleyes don't eat their own kind and so many perch.. I'm sure I'll get ripped a new one for saying this but it's just a thought.. Why did the DNRE get rid of the slot limit if they were well aware of all the big fish that the netters removed?? Doesn't make sense.. Maybe everyone should just give this issue a rest, what's done is done and we can't turn back time.. We should worry more about stopping Asian Carp which will completely destroy our fishery..

Good post. I agree on most except the icefishing, I don't ice fish. We have. Bigger problems looming.

[Lonesome Loser]

To answer some questions.

They were not charged with all the past years. They were only charged with the fish from 2009. The records from the fish house went back several years, and all those years (6-7) is where the amount of 72000 came from. They could only be charged with the year (and days) that officers saw them out with nets. Since they were not witnessed on the ice in years past by officers they could not be charged. The total amount of fish they were charged with selling was less than 10,000.

Taking away their subsistence license is HUGE, by your way of thinking maybe they should stop revoking a drivers license because people are just gonna drive anyway. And yes they may still break the law, but most criminals do to.

Crimes like this the fines NEVER = what was made in the long run. Dope dealers, car thieves, kids doing B&E's they never pay what was made in fines. Whoever said "crime doen't pay" had no idea what they were talking about. Crime pays very well and that is why we have so much of it. Also there were three others involved, so the money was probably split at least 6 ways.

Instead of being mad about what they didn't get you should be happy with what they did get. In years past DNR Officer were not even allowed into the courtroom during a Tribal trial for a menber they had written a ticket too. If this had happened 10 years ago they probably would have gotten away with it. The whole justice system is what it is. And in terms of how other cases come out this one came out pretty well. Remember OJ got away with murder, the Mendenz brothers got away with murder, people get away with crimes all the time in court. The entire system was set upon the principle of "it is better that 100 guilty people go free then one innocent person get locked up"

Once again, this is a VICTORY!

[Lonesome Loser]

Also, just a thought.

Now that the case has made it through court, the police report becomes public information. I have heard of a thing called FOIA or The Freedom of Information Act. So anybody could submit a FOIA request, I think there may be a processing fee, and get a copy of the police report.

Then you could have the real info and not have to listen to rumors about the case.

[Ashman]

I can't speak for tribal court systems, but my wife works in the county court system. Information can be obtained through a FOIA for any of the courts in that system, probate, civil, etc. (not tribal)

Fees for this varies depending on how much information needs to be gotten, and processed. Some of the FOIA's she has done for people are simple and the fee is small.....some require lots of work and can get spendy. On one occasion it was quite high and the person who requested it thought it was too high and asked for it to be lowered, of which they complied.

Our County (Eaton) as far as I know does not have a tribal court.